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feministdragon · 11 months

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(warning: extreme violence and torture descriptions)

I argue that Pat Califia’s The Lesbian S/M Safety Manual (1988) is a manual in self-annihilation, in extermination of lesbian culture, in parading pornography as freedom, just as repressive political regimes have talked of liberation when they have meant death. To reinforce this, let me cite another extract from Califia.

[Humiliation]. . .is the deliberate lowering of the bottom’s status to an eroticized, yet stigmatized, identity. This may include turning the bottom into: (1) an object or a machine, (2) an animal, (3) a child or baby, (4) a member of the opposite sex, (5) a sexual object or genital, (6) a servant or slave. Humiliation can also involve treating the bottom as a member of a racial or ethnic group, sexual orientation or socioeconomic class which the top pretends22 to resent, dislike etc. (Califia 1988, 52)

Sadomasochism is a form of consumerism of experience. In a similar way to that in which Western culture has appropriated the cultures of indigenous and non-Western peoples, the practitioners of S/M are appropriating the experiences of oppressed peoples who have been tortured by dictatorial governments or who have been slaves under racist regimes or the lesbians who are tortured by fundamentalist and militarized regimes. As Brennan (2003) has indicated, the only thing that all fundamentalists agree on is the importance of repressing women’s sexuality and punishing breaches of the heterosexual code.23 The practitioners of S/M turn an uncontrollable experience of torture into a game that can be stopped (but people undergoing real torture do not have the option of saying no).24 The “near death experience” of S/M can be read as just another consumerist game. The consuming of material goods has reached its limits, so instead S/M practitioners attempt to simulate death in the pursuit of yet another thrill. S/M is a luxury game. It is expropriation of experience. It is ultimately full of contempt for others. In a society in which torture can be described as “performative” or as “direct communication with Iraqi prisoners”25 and BDSM can be presented as a series of classes to those interested in “healing themselves”26 or simply interested in the experience of powerfulness, these are central questions of social health. Given that it is the marginalized, lesbians among them, who are most prone to being tortured, the issue of social health is an important indicator of levels of social justice in a society. When acts of torture and acts of “non-consensual consent,” as BDSM is described by Weiss (2005), are placed against the reality of the torture of lesbians, what statement is made about contemporary culture? Pornography is a way of making money out of torture, and it is appropriative. It is appropriative of lesbians who are tortured because they are lesbians; of lesbians who have been pushed off buildings in Iraq, falling to their death, because they are lesbians; of lesbians who are beaten and raped because they are lesbians; of lesbians who are whipped, whose hands are amputated, who are forced into unwanted marriages because they are lesbians; and of lesbians in most countries who are silenced because they are lesbians (Hawthorne 2004a; Hawthorne 2004b).27

Furthermore, if Weiss (2005) can argue (and her audience can feel comfortable applauding her arguments) that acts identical to torture–humiliation, violent penetration with objects, cutting off of clothes, bondage–are acceptable in a BDSM scene, and are deemed philosophically acceptable, where does the slide down the slippery slope begin and end? These are complex questions of morality. They concern issues around consent, power and lack of power, justice, and a disbelief in justice as central.

The effect of the acceptance of torturing acts is a de-moralizing of the culture. A demoralized person is one who cannot fight back, who has been kicked too many times. The effect results not from the nature of any one kick, but rather from the cumulative effect of multiple kicks, “a thousand small cuts” that leave the person too dispirited to make a stand. The demoralizing of a victim of torture is cumulative and the result of many humiliations, painful experiences, isolation, and dehumanizing acts. Such is the society in which we are living. Even those of us who are not consciously aware daily of the thousands of cuts are affected nevertheless.

Those who ignore and deny lesbian dignity are eventually affected too. Among feminists it is argued that acts of racism gnaw at the social fabric, create racialized violence (be it against diasporas and natives of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, or against indigenous peoples from the colonized world). From this perspective, sexualized violence against women–including lesbians–also tears apart the social fabric.

Each day they unstitch a new part of me. There’s the relentless beating. The reminders of the gun. My brain stalls each time I think of it. The pointedness of their violence is increasing. Velvet voice visits randomly. When I hear his footsteps, the fear rises like vomit. Today they had me spreadeagled on the floor. Face down. Urine filling my nostrils. He paced in a decreasing spiral shape. Laughing at our weighing of the spiral with such import. I’ll show you what a spiral’s for, he said. And at that he stepped onto my left hand. Get rid of the left hand, he said. I know you like language games. Sinister sister. At that he stepped onto my right hand. Rosie fingered dawn, you slut. He stepped and twisted his foot heavily over my fingers. No more fingersmithing for you. He stepped and twisted. Paced and stepped and twisted again. The bones broken. The fingers flat and useless just as he wanted. He always leaves me in pain. He always leaves and I’m wracked with sobbing. The horror of what he does. My fingers crushed like broken twigs. My hands rotting stumps. In Iran, I remember, they amputate the hands of lesbians. (Hawthorne 2004d, 48)

JOURNAL OF HATE STUDIES [Vol. 4:33 2005/06] THE TORTURE OF LESBIANS p43-44

link to pdf: drive.google.com/file/d/1GElZx8ucmwIvl_Xxrskwyc7CAu96oaYr/view

#tw violence #tw rape #violence #rape #anti-bdsm #pat califia was a major force in undoing lesbian culture and lesbian community

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cactusradical · 2 years

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pro-bdsm morons looove to use this language of 'if it makes someone happy...' which is fundamentally deficient as an argument because it conflates horniness with happiness.

using myself as an example, I have a submissive streak, so yes, bdsm sexual activity makes me horny.

that streak also originates from deep trauma and self-hatred, and engaging in it reinforces my own negative conceptions of myself, which certainly doesn't make me happy.

that streak has also led to me being spat on, called worthless, choked until I was purple and having a permanent jaw stiffness from where I was slapped in the face. none of that makes me happy.

I used to cry after the majority of my sexual experiences because of how degraded I felt, despite the fact that minutes earlier I was loving it and begging for more. it was a horrible comedown. that doesn't sound like happiness to me.

and all of my experiences were 100% consensual. in fact, I was the one that initiated them. a lot of the time it was masturbation anyway. so the bdsm community can't dismiss this as 'real doms aren't abusers'. they were consensual, and they made me horny. they still ruined my relationship to sex, and therefore my happiness.

all this to say, I will always care far more about women's health and wellbeing than their desire for a brief moment of ultimately harmful pleasure, and if you don't then you're telling me you're not a safe person to be around.

#original commentary #anti-bdsm

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